Warm Up - The Unplugged Foundation (10 min)

Review Unplugged Activity

This lesson relies on the concept of repeat loops that students learned in the previous unplugged activity, Happy Loops. It is important to bring this idea from the real world into digital form so that students understand how to use Blockly blocks to repeat a task multiple times.

Display: Show students map from the "Happy Loops" exercise that they completed in the lessons prior to this one.

Discuss: Ask students to recall the symbols used in "Happy Loops."

• What happens when "East" arrow is circled with the number 3? (It moves E 3 times)
• What is it called when we circle an arrow and add a number? (A repeat loop)

Transition: Once you are satisfied that your students remember "Happy Loops", you can move into the Bridging Activity.

Bridging Activity - Choose One

Choose one of the following to do with your class:

Unplugged Activity Using Paper Blocks

Select an empty Flurb map from the Happy Map Cards - Worksheet and give students Unplugged Blockly Blocks (Grades K-1) - Manipulatives prefilled with the collect command, a repeat loop, and the cardinal commands like E → (East) and W ← (West). Now, have the students program the Flurb from their desks using the paper Blockly blocks to get the Flurbs to collect the fruit. Make sure that they understand that the blocks need to go from top to bottom and they all need to touch!

Previewing Online Puzzles as a Class

Pull a puzzle from the corresponding online puzzles. We recommend puzzle 4. Using arrows from the Happy Map Game Pieces - Manipulatives and Happy Map Game Pieces Bonus Pack - Manipulatives, have students lay out a pattern that they think will get the Harvester to pick all the corn. Ask the students to share. See how many other students had the same answer!

Online Foundation: Preview Loops in Ice Age

To finish the connection, preview an online puzzle (or two) as a class.

Model: Reveal an entire online puzzle from the progression to come. We recommend Lesson 8, Puzzle 5. Point out the "Play Area" with Scrat and the acorn, as well as the "Work Space" with the Blockly code. Explain that this Blockly code is now the language that the class will be using to help Scrat get to the acorn. Do students see any similarities to the exercise that they just did? What are the big differences?

Work with your class to drag code into the workspace in such a way that Scrat (eventually) gets to the acorn.

Transition: Students should now be ready to transition to computers to complete online puzzles on their own.

Main Activity (30 min)

Online Puzzles

As students work through the puzzles, see if they can figure out how many blocks they use with a loop vs. without a loop.

Circulate: Teachers play a vital role in computer science education and supporting a collaborative and vibrant classroom environment. During online activities, the role of the teacher is primarily one of encouragement and support. Online lessons are meant to be student-centered, so teachers should avoid stepping in when students get stuck. Some ideas on how to do this are:

• Utilize Pair Programming - Student Video whenever possible
• Encourage students with questions/challenges to start by asking their partner
• Unanswered questions can be escalated to a nearby group, who might already know the solution
• Remind students to use the debugging process before you approach
• Have students describe the problem that they’re seeing. What is it supposed to do? What does it do? What does that tell you?
• Remind frustrated students that frustration is a step on the path to learning, and that persistence will pay off.
• If a student is still stuck after all of this, ask leading questions to get the student to spot an error on their own.

Wrap Up (5 - 10 min)

Journaling

Having students write about what they learned, why it’s useful, and how they feel about it can help solidify any knowledge they obtained today and build a review sheet for them to look to in the future.

Journal Prompts:

• What was today’s lesson about?
• Draw one of the Feeling Faces - Emotion Images that shows how you felt about today's lesson in the corner of your journal page.
• Draw Scrat and an acorn.
• Draw yourself using a loop to do an everyday activity, like brushing your teeth.

Extended Learning

So Moving

• Give the students pictures of actions or dance moves that they can do.
  • Have students arrange moves and add loops to choreograph their own dance.
• Share the dances with the rest of the class.

Connect It Back

• Find some YouTube videos of popular dances that repeat themselves.
• Can your class find the loops?
• Try the same thing with songs!